


Renegade

by LittleLostPieces



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Fluff and Humor, Innuendo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2314364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostPieces/pseuds/LittleLostPieces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They’re not super villains, Louis and Zayn aren’t.  As far as Harry has seen, world domination isn’t exactly on their agenda.  Of course, in this town, a couple of social activists intent on making themselves heard through graffiti messages are still sitting alone at the top of the Most Wanted list.</i>
</p><p>In which Harry, Niall, and Liam are cops.  Zayn and Louis are graffiti vandals on a mission.  Niall likes doughnuts, Liam likes himself, and Zayn would like to get through one job without the police being called.  Harry and Louis like each other, which is becoming increasingly more inconvenient for Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renegade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jtsbbsps_dk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jtsbbsps_dk/gifts).



> I apologize only for the depressing lack of penis jokes I was able to fit into this story. (And also for the fact that I barely understand how the American justice system works and cannot begin to comprehend the British, so this is basically an all-around ridiculous fallacy.)
> 
> Title taken from _Renegade_ by Styx.

Harry’s just helped himself to one of Niall’s steaming hot, glazed doughnuts when the call comes in, a security breach downtown. His head falls back and he lets out a groan, though with his mouth still wide open, it sounds more like he’s choking to death.

Niall, helpful co-worker that he is not, manages to cackle _and_ steal Harry’s doughnut back in one fluid motion. “Sucks to be you,” is all he offers as his teeth sink into the warm, sweet smelling snack that Harry might actually give one of his two extraneous nipples for at the moment.

As it is, he’s at the tail end of a double shift and his partner’s called in sick for the night. In any other town, that would warrant assigning another partner, he thinks, but being as nothing ever happens here, Harry is on his own.

“It’s not as though he minds, is it?” Liam asks from his seat atop his squad car.

When Harry casts a glare Liam’s way, it’s to find that Liam can’t see it anyway. He’s lying atop his squad car, reclined against the window, hat pulled low over his face, shirt untucked and unbuttoned to reveal the white tank he’s wearing underneath. It’s sweated through in the heat of the late summer night, sticking to his chest and stomach like some sort of charity calendar model dressed as a police officer.

“I should cite you for a uniform violation,” Harry throws back, though they both know he won’t. He won’t cite him for sitting on his goddamn car and taking a fucking nap _during_ his shift, either. It’s only because Harry is a better friend than Liam.

Tilting his hat back, Liam grins like a tiny child and not at all like a suave calendar model. “Because then you might not catch your favorite delinquent supervillains, yeah?”

They’re hardly supervillains, Harry thinks but doesn’t say, instead flicking Liam off en route to his own car. 

As far as he’s seen, world domination isn’t exactly on their agenda. Of course, in this town, a couple of social activists intent on making themselves heard through graffiti messages are still sitting alone at the top of the Most Wanted list.

They’ve evaded Harry until now. Oh, he knows who they are and they know that he knows, but he just can’t _catch_ them is the problem. Well, one of the problems. Jesy, his partner, would say that the real problem is that Harry doesn’t want to catch them, but what does she know? She’s too busy crushing on their dispatch operator to pay much attention to Harry.

Though he considers stopping at a drive-thru on his way to the scene, Harry does have a bit of professional integrity left. Not enough to speed from the convenience store on the edge of town to the law office in the heart of it, but enough not to show up eating a chalupa. 

There’s little traffic around these parts at this time of night, but Harry flips his lights and his siren on anyway. It’s protocol, and also makes him feel pretty cool. Without Jesy to banter with, he has to amuse himself somehow.

He sits in the car for a moment, parked at the curb and staring up at the building through the windshield. The message is clear - not so many different ways to interpret the scrawling words _homophobe_ , _racist_ , and _mayor_ , the last one crossed out with a giant penis - but Harry finds himself more curious as to how they did it this time. 

The first one was easy - a rainbow and the silhouette of a woman with a shotgun splashed across the lawn of a frat house notorious for its homophobia and misogyny. The president of the fraternity was so hungover the next day that he could barely file the report, so it wasn’t as if he could point fingers at the actual culprits. If Louis hadn’t happened by at the time, hands tucked into the pockets of his incredibly tight jeans and hair disheveled like he was doing an obvious walk of shame, Harry wouldn’t have had a clue who’d done it.

He’s yet to get a confession on that one, but it seemed pretty obvious at the time.

“ _Were you in the area last night, Sir?_ “ Harry had asked, trying his best not to notice just how lovely the young man was up close.

Louis had only smirked and nodded. 

“ _Did you see anyone acting suspicious? Anyone who might have done this?_ ” Harry asked, pointing to the lawn.

Raising onto his toes to peer at the art over Harry’s shoulder, he just smiled brighter and shrugged. 

“ _What’s your name?_ ” was probably not the follow-up Harry should have asked at the moment, but he was distracted. This guy’s eyes were super blue and he smelled amazing, not at all like someone who’d just spent the night in someone else’s bed. And Jesy was muttering something about kicking the president of the fraternity in the balls for looking at her tits while she questioned him, so he thinks he can be excused for it. At least, that’s his story.

The sound of his voice, scratchy and clear as a bell, took Harry by surprise. “ _Louis Tomlinson,_ ” with such confidence. “ _Might want to write that down, Officer,_ ” he added, nodding toward Harry’s notebook. “ _You’ll probably want to remember it later._ ”

With a wink, he had disappeared and while Harry hadn’t exactly forgotten all about him, he didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about him, either. He certainly didn’t spend the rest of his shift thinking about Louis’ ass in his jeans. That would be unprofessional, that.

The second call was made from a “concerned citizen” who lived across from a church in town, reporting that two figures dressed in black were painting something on the billboard out front. 

By the time Harry and Jesy arrived, the damage was done once again. That one bore a message against greed and general intolerance, but the colors and the style were similar to the frat vandalism. Harry could have written it off as coincidence, he supposes, if a couple of young men dressed in black hadn’t come walking by, drinking Big Gulps and laughing together as if they were just out for a stroll.

“ _Louis Tomlinson,_ ” Harry called, causing both men to stop and turn. The one who wasn’t Louis seemed confused and a bit concerned, but Louis himself only smiled as though greeting a long, lost friend.

“ _You remembered!_ ” he exclaimed. “ _I’m touched_.”

“ _Thought I might see you again,_ ” Harry said. “ _Who’s your friend?_ ”

“ _This is Zayn,_ ” Louis said, smacking Zayn on the back and getting wide, incredulous eyes in the process. “ _Say hello to the officers of the law, Zayn._ ”

“ _I can’t believe you_ ,” Zayn muttered, offering Harry and Jesy a slight wave before turning his attention back to Louis. “ _I thought the point was to_ not _get arrested, you idiot._ ”

Jesy was already reaching for her cuffs but Harry shook his head. It was questionable, sure, but so far they hadn’t actually seen the pair do anything illegal. 

“ _Stop talking, Zayn,_ ” Louis suggested with a wide smile fixed solely on Harry. “ _You’re making us look suspicious._ ”

“ _Nah,_ ” Jesy had finally interjected. “ _You’re standing under this billboard, dressed in all black right after we got a call about two people dressed in all black, vandalizing this billboard is what’s makin’ you look suspicious._ ”

But Louis shrugged it off as easily as he had the other incident. “ _Sounds like a lot of coincidence to me. Know what I mean, Zayn?_ ”

Though Zayn mumbled something Harry couldn’t hear, he pretty much stopped talking after that. Louis winked at Harry before they both took off down the street together. 

While Jesy stepped over to the ladder at the side of the billboard and did a cursory check for clues they both knew she wouldn’t find, Harry stared after Louis, marveling at how the street lamps played off the curve of his ass. It wasn’t his finest police work probably.

But those first two had made sense. The lawn and the billboard were both fairly easy access areas. What has Harry baffled this time is how they managed to paint this one at the very top of a three-story office building. No ladder would reach that high, so unless they climbed on top of the building and painted it upside down, Harry is stumped.

With a sigh, he steps out of the car and pulls his flashlight from his belt. 

A rustling in the shadows puts his back up a bit. Only a bit, as it’s more likely to be a raccoon rummaging through the trash than any actual danger in these parts, but he’s hyper alert as he points the beam of his flashlight toward the noise.

His shoulders relax as he sees Zayn and Louis coming out of the alley together. They’re not dressed in black this time - probably too hot for that, Harry thinks - but they’ve both got backpacks slung over their shoulders and snapbacks on their heads. They look every bit the part of juvenile delinquents, far from dangerous but guilty nonetheless.

“If it isn’t Pinky and the Brain,” Harry says, probably more friendly and familiar with two potential criminals than he should be. 

Zayn rolls his eyes and lights a cigarette as Louis smiles brightly and approaches Harry with an ease that indicates their relationship is not at all what a cop/vandal relationship should be. 

“Which one am I then?” Louis asks, coming to a stop just a few feet away, his hands tucked into the pockets of his denim shorts as he looks up at Harry through the longest eyelashes Harry’s seen on a man in ages.

Peering up at the building and then back at the pair before him, he says, “Depends, I suppose. Was it your job to cut the alarm? Because if it was, you’re absolutely not the Brain.”

Zayn drops his head back, exhales a plume of smoke to the sky, and groans. “Dammit, Louis.”

Nonplussed, Louis shrugs his shoulders. “If I knew what you were talking about, I might be offended. Being as me and Zayn were just on our way home from the library, I absolutely have no idea to what you’re referring, Officer Styles.”

It occurs to Harry that if it were anybody else, _anyone_ , he would be frustrated with the cavalier way that Louis is assuming he’s a complete idiot. The library is a mile in the other direction. They know that he knows it’s them. They also know that he could, with the smallest amount of actual police work, pin it on them easily. The assumption that he won’t should be infuriating. 

It shouldn’t feel like foreplay.

“There’s paint on Zayn’s fingers,” he says, just to assure them that he’s not actually Barney Fife. “This is the third time I’ve talked to you outside a crime scene and if I wanted to, I could ask you to open your bags right now.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow, looking just a tad bit concerned, but Louis just rocks from his toes to his heels and continues to smile up at Harry. 

“D’you know that this asshole running for Mayor is the most bigoted, greedy, waste of human flesh I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life?” he asks.

The thing is, Harry does know that. He knows that this place he loves, this town where he grew up and has now vowed to serve and protect, will be a far different place if the lunkhead is actually elected. It’s unlikely, but possible, and Harry does know that. He hasn’t actually disagreed with any of the messages that Zayn and Louis have been broadcasting. Still.

“Doesn’t give you the right to deface his property, unfortunately,” he says with a sad shake of his head.

“Good thing we didn’t then, isn’t it?” Louis responds easily with a wink.

The part of his brain that knows how to do his job and is actually fairly good at it tells Harry to search them. The other part, the one who sees their point and understands it - which also happens to be the part that wishes he’d met Louis in a bar and not at the scene of three crimes now - wins out this time. 

He waves haphazardly to move them along and sighs. “I’m going to catch you in the act one of these days and then I’m going to have to arrest you. You get that, don’t you?”

They don’t respond with words or handshakes and hugs or anything, but they do seem a bit resigned to it as they begin to walk away.

“Hey Zayn,” Harry calls when he’s at the door of his car. When they both turn, Harry rests his arms on the roof and folds his hands together. “Just out of curiosity, if you _were_ to do something like that,” he nods over his shoulder to the painting, “How on earth would you get up there and get it done?”

Zayn’s smile is slow and steady. “I’d probably take some rope and a grappling hook, repel down like Batman, ya know?”

If Harry sees the end of a thick, black cord hanging out of Louis’ backpack when the pair sets off again, he pretends it’s a trick of the lights.

*

In the end, Harry doesn’t _technically_ catch them in the act. 

He’s traded early shifts with Niall and barely makes it to his desk before the Chief is calling him into his office.

There was a time when such a summons would have made Harry nervous, but he’s long past the days of thinking he’s accidentally done something wrong. He doesn’t even get called in when he does something intentionally wrong, so why worry about it?

“You wanted to see me, Chief?” he asks, knocking on the door before stepping into the office.

The Chief motions Harry into the office with one hand and raises an egg and sausage sandwich to his mouth with the other. Half of it falls out onto his desk. 

“Styles,” the Chief shouts while attempting to stuff the contents of his sandwich back inside the bread. 

It’s pretty gross, but Harry smiles anyway. “What’s up, Sir?” 

“Got a call from the factory,” he explains, reaching for a paper with a few hastily scribbled notes. “Seems they were visited by a couple masked bandits with spray paint and a message about equal hiring practices.”

Harry’s head drops, his chin bumping off of his chest as he nods. “Alright. Well, if they have a lead, I’d be happy to follow it but in my experience, these two have pretty illusive until now,” he says, hoping to hell that the Chief buys his excuse.

He doesn’t, though. He just smiles around a bite of his sandwich and hands Harry the paper with the scribbles. “Security tape. All you’ve got to do is pick it up and then go pick them up. Take Payne with you,” he adds, looking around Harry to see Liam reclined in his chair, rolling the sleeves of his uniform up over his biceps. 

“You got it, Chief,” he says, nearly running out of the office and toward his desk. “C’mon, Payne. I’m driving.”

Liam seems unaffected by Harry’s flurry of activity. “Where to?” he asks, running his hands over the flat front of his shirt with a furrowed expression. Harry’s not sure anyone has ever been as obsessed with their own body as Liam is, and Harry lived with Niall through what he likes to call ‘the violent masturbation era.’

“To see Louis,” he answers and then stops short, slowly turning to find Liam smiling back so hard that his eyes have all but disappeared. “I mean, to catch some criminals.”

Liam doesn’t stop laughing at Harry until they ease the car into the driveway of the house Louis and Zayn apparently share. The car they park behind looks startlingly familiar.

“Niall?” Liam asks when his partner throws the front door open, dressed casually and holding a beer bottle between his fingers.

“Lads!” Niall shouts, wrapping his arms around Harry and Liam and drawing them into the house. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to arrest Louis and Zayn. What are _you_ doing here?” Harry asks, noting that the men of the hour are watching them curiously from the couch.

Flopping down on the chair across from the couch and grabbing a video game controller, he says, “Zayn’s my college roommate. We’ve been friends for ages.” He doesn’t seem surprised that his partner and another co-worker have shown up at the door to arrest his old friend but, to be fair, Niall never seems all that shocked by much of anything.

Louis stands then, straightens the hem of his t shirt over his jeans and moves slowly toward Harry. “What’s this about arresting us, Officer? I’m pretty sure sitting around my own living room in the middle of the day is not against the law. Or at any time of the day really.”

He knows he staring, Harry does, but the way Louis’ jeans fit. “Are those jeggings?” he asks because, apparently, his brain has taken leave of his mouth at the moment.

Louis smirks and rests his hands on the curves of his hips, but before he can respond with one of those witty comebacks Harry’s grown so accustomed to, Liam claps his hands together and makes a weird circular motion with his finger. 

“Alright, Tomlinson, let’s go,” he says , stepping forward with his hands on his belt like he’s starring in some 80’s cop film. Sometimes Liam cracks Harry up in the most unintentional ways.

Louis isn’t here for it, though, instead holding his hand up and taking another step closer to Harry. “Hold on there, Malibu Ken,” he says to Liam. “I’m waiting for Officer Curly to tell me why I’m being arrested in my own home while innocently playing a bit of Fifa with my mates.”

“We have security footage of the two of you breaking into the biggest building in town and painting a massive rainbow flag over the wall of the cafeteria,” Harry explains.

“Goddammit, Louis,” Zayn exclaims, covering his face with both hands and sinking back onto the couch. “I told you.”

“You told me nothing, Zayn,” Louis interrupts, using his hand to motion in front of his face before very pointedly nodding.

“Right, you wore masks,” Harry interprets the charade. Dammit, but he doesn’t want to have to do this. If only Louis would have cut the security camera like it looked like he was meant to do in the footage Harry and Liam watched earlier. “But you also wore tank tops and those tattoos you’re both sporting are pretty recognizable.”

Heaving a dramatic, completely insincere sigh, Louis hangs his head for a moment and then looks up to smile at Zayn. “I guess we’re busted,” he admits. “We’ve broken the law and now it’s time to pay our debt to society.”

Zayn flips him off as he stands, lit cigarette in his mouth, turning to cross his wrists behind his back. “Can’t believe I put you in charge of protecting us. Can’t believe you used actual important civil disobedience to flirt with a fucking cop. Can’t believe we’re fucking going to jail because of your goddamn dick,” he’s muttering as Liam cuffs him and leads him out of the house.

“Nialler, why don’t you go make sure Liam’s not roughing up the suspect too much, huh?” Harry suggests, eyes trained on Louis as though he may make any sort of attempt to run. 

Niall finishes his beer in one swallow and tosses the controller onto the floor. “Not like I’m gonna hang around here without them anyway,” he says, shrugging and jogging out of the house to leave Harry and Louis alone in the living room.

“So this is how it ends, huh?” Louis asks.

Harry smiles and takes another step closer to Louis, squaring his shoulders in an attempt to show just how much taller he is, how much broader and more capable of manhandling Louis he could be. Ya know, just in case Louis is interested in knowing that sort of thing.

“Alright, fine,” Louis finally concedes, turning his back and crossing his wrists for Harry. 

Harry rests his hands between Louis’ shoulder blades, makes sure he has a decent grip so Louis can’t get away. Maybe it’s the summer humidity, but Harry can feel the heat rolling off of Louis’ body and he has to take a minute to swallow the immediate desire to rough him up for the hell of it, to press him up against the wall, breathe a threat or two in a low tone against the shell of Louis’ ear. Jesus, what he’d like to do to this man.

He leans in anyway. “Are you going to be quiet long enough for me to read you your rights?” he asks, mouth maybe a hair too close.

Louis shivers a bit and shakes his head, a soft chuckle escaping as he relaxes against Harry’s hands. “Probably not,” he answers, voice dropped husky and rough as he leans back and presses his bum directly onto Harry’s dick. “Oh, my. Is that a baton in your pocket, Officer?” he asks.

Rolling his hips forward, Harry licks his lips and answers with a simple, “Nope.”

“You must be really happy to see me then, huh?” Louis carries on with the bad joke as Harry secures the cuffs and leads him out of the house.

As he closes the door behind him, he says, “Why don’t you ask me again when you’re out of jail, yeah?”

*

By the time Harry heads out of the precinct, he’s ready to sleep for approximately forty years. It was only about five hours ago he and Liam booked Louis and Zayn into the holding cell, but it seems like an eternity. 

He’s pulling his shirt from his pants, unbuttoning the first few buttons, when he steps out of the back entrance to a wolf whistle that surprises him enough to make him jump back a step and stumble over his own feet.

A few yards away, leaning against Niall’s car, are Zayn and Louis along with Niall and Liam. 

“What’s going on here?”

Louis steps forward with a shrug and a softer smile than the smirky ones he’s been giving Harry since the day they met. “Turns out, bail’s not the hardest thing in the world to make.”

Of course, he knew that they would be out before morning, but Harry wasn’t thinking it would happen quite so fast, nor did he think he would be seeing Louis again so soon. They’d never so much as crossed paths before this graffiti business started.

“C’mon, Harold. We’re gonna grab a round and celebrate the Dynamic Duo’s release from the slammer,” Niall says, pulling his keys from his pocket and jumping into the car with Zayn and Liam.

“What do you say, Officer?” Louis asks. “Gonna let me buy you a drink for all the trouble I’ve caused lately?”

“I don’t know,” Harry answers with a shrug, noticing the way Louis follows him to his car instead of heading over toward Niall’s. “You gonna actually pay for it or skip out on the bill and deny having ever seen it?”

With a snort, Louis hesitates. “Is that how it’s gonna be now, then? You rubbing my criminal record in my face all the time?” He grins brightly, beautifully, when Harry unlocks the doors and nods for him to get in the car. “That’s no foundation for a healthy relationship, Curly.”

Securing his seat belt, Harry looks over at the man in his passenger seat, a man he’s spent more than a month chasing. He seems smaller now, less arrogant and more open to letting Harry see who he really is. Maybe. 

“Are you gonna stop breaking the law and making my job harder?” Harry challenges back. It occurs to him that it wouldn’t be that difficult for Louis to make something else harder for Harry. He’s basically doing it now without even trying.

Louis doesn’t actually answer, just waits until Harry parks in front of the bar to ask, “D’you have those handcuffs with you?”

Harry nods with a smirk of his own.

He doesn’t know how this happened, how a man he arrested this morning ended up sitting in his car, flirting with him at the end of the day, but he’s not sorry that it did. Not even a little.

*

Harry’s just popped a chip into his mouth, savoring the salt and fat of it for only a second, when the Chief shouts from his office, “Styles!”

Niall cackles into his third doughnut, feet propped up on his desk, as he nods toward the open door. Harry flicks him off but it only makes Niall laugh harder.

When their former Chief was elected Mayor, Harry thought some things might change around here. He wasn’t sure if it would be for better or for worse, but he was a bit nervous about it. Then Liam was appointed Chief. Liam, who is currently sitting at his desk with his biceps flexed in a wholly unnatural, wholly _Liam_ way that just makes Harry laugh and shake his head. 

“What do you want?” he asks, wondering if he has time to fling himself down in the chair across from Liam’s desk or if he’s going to be sent out on another pointless call in twenty seconds.

Liam holds up a slip of paper, the kind that is apparently required for the Chief of Police to wave around this office no matter who’s in that chair, and smiles happily. “Got a vandalism call from a concerned citizen over on Butler.”

Butler? “That’s my street,” Harry says flatly, taking the paper and glancing at it before glaring at Liam again. “This is my address.”

With a shrug, Liam leans back in his chair and folds his arms behind his head. “Guess you better get over there then, hadn’t you?”

Harry speeds through town, siren and lights blazing as though he’s en route to a murder in progress. It’s highly unlikely, being as Liam already told him it’s a vandalism call, but that’s _Harry’s_ house, the one he bought with Louis six months ago. He can’t help thinking someone he’s arrested in the past may be wanting some payback or something.

When he races into his own driveway, the brakes squeal as he slams them to avoid running into the garage door, the one that is now painted in a rainbow of familiar colors, words in Zayn’s unmistakable graffiti scrawled across what used to be a lovely, crisp, white surface.

The guilty parties are sitting on the porch, dressed head to toe in black, drinking casually from beer bottles.

“Two years was your limit?” he asks as he steps out of the car and heads toward the men now regarding him with huge, shit-eating grins. “Just couldn’t resist the itch anymore, huh?”

Zayn shrugs and takes another drink as Louis stands. “Seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate the anniversary of my unfortunate capture,” he explains, slowly making his way over to wrap his arms around Harry’s middle. 

“Giving me a heart attack was your idea of a romantic gesture?” Harry asks, hands coming to rest on Louis’ hips. 

The Louis that Harry has fallen in love with is not the Louis he thought he knew when he arrested him two years ago. He’s far calmer and more subdued on a daily basis than Harry imagined he would be. There’s still a hint of impish mischief behind his eyes, though. Pushing boundaries and breaking rules is still an addiction he can’t seem to beat, or even be all that interested in trying to beat, really.

Harry still finds it hard to remember anything else exists when Louis is close to him like this, though. He can’t imagine that much changing in the next two years, or the two after that. 

Lifting onto his toes, Louis presses a kiss to Harry’s chin and says, “Are you gonna cuff me, Officer?”

Zayn snorts and stands, stomping the butt of his cigarette beneath the heel of his boot. “Think that’s my cue to go. Unless you’re actually going to detain us,” he adds with a raised eyebrow and a challenge.

Harry tears his gaze from Louis long enough to smile at Zayn. “You two idiots do realize that Louis’ name is on the deed for this house, right? It’s not actually illegal if he came up with the idea and gave you permission to do it.”

Louis pouts, actually sticks his bottom lip out and pushes Harry away. “Well, that’s disappointing,” he declares. Turning on his heel, he offers Zayn a small wave. “Thanks for the help anyway.”

With a disaffected shrug, Zayn walks away, hands stuffed into his pockets as he sets off for wherever he’s going next. Harry can’t be bothered to ask.

Harry waits until Louis is within arm’s reach again and then grabs his wrist and drags him toward the side of the house. “Doesn’t mean I can’t rough you up a bit,” he teases, shoving Louis’ chest up against the wall and pressing in close, free hand between his shoulder blades as he bends low and breathes against the corner of Louis’ jaw. “You have the right to remain silent,” he whispers, smiling inwardly when Louis trembles in his grasp and goes slack against Harry’s body.

“But anything I do say can be held against me, right?” he asks, voice shaking as he rolls his hips back and grinds his ass against Harry’s leg. 

If he wasn’t one of only a few officers on the police force in this town, if he wasn’t absolutely certain that someone would see and begin to talk about the way _Officer Styles was humping his boyfriend on the front lawn_ , he would do just that. 

Instead, he pulls Louis back, both of his hands clenched tightly in one of Harry’s, and pushes him toward the front door. “C’mon,” he says, as rough as he can and fighting a bubbling giggle building in his throat. “I have some questions to ask you, Tomlinson.”

“Alright, fine,” Louis concedes, letting Harry lead him. Inside the foyer, he stops and turns. “I think you should answer my question first, though.” Off of Harry’s furrowed brow, Louis huffs and sighs. “On the garage, you numpty. I didn’t have Zayn out there all morning for my health. Fuck, Harry, did you even read it?”

Alright, so maybe Harry was so relieved to find that actual criminals weren’t destroying their house that he didn't pay all that much attention to Zayn’s work. Rather than admit that, he wordlessly drops Louis’ hands and walks back outside to consider the art one again.

He has to rest against the hood of his car to keep from falling over when he registers the two words painted there: _Marry Me_? 

“Well?” Louis asks against his ear, causing Harry to jump a bit. He hadn’t even heard him approaching. 

He nods, turning to catch Louis’ face in his hands and kiss him hard enough that Louis ‘oomph’s a little against Harry’s mouth. “Yes,” he says on a laugh as he pulls away, stumbling again and dragging Louis with him until they tumble to the ground. “Yes, I will marry you.”

Louis lands on top and takes full advantage of keeping Harry in place, thighs squeezing tight against Harry’s hips while he bends to catch Harry’s lip between his teeth. He grinds down and then freezes.

“What?” Harry asks, half-dazed and a bit confused as to why the kissing has stopped. The kissing was so good. Harry is a big fan of kissing Louis.

But Louis just raises an eyebrow, his eyes slowly skimming Harry’s chest and then lower. “I think your gun is poking me in the leg,” he says.

“That’s not my gun,” Harry informs him with a satisfied smirk and a quick thrust.

Jumping to his feet with an agility Harry didn’t know he possessed, Louis cackles and shouts over his shoulder, “If you’re not inside in fifteen seconds, I’m starting without you!”

It’s not so easy to move that fast in Harry’s current condition, but he figures that’s alright. There are worse things than walking into the house to find Louis bent over the couch with his pants around his ankles.

He casts another look at the garage door before he heads inside. Not for the first time, he sends up a random prayer of thanks that Louis and Zayn decided to graffiti that first lawn on his watch.


End file.
